Before, After, and Reset
by Dark-Automaton
Summary: A young woman sat in the dead field. The Batter could have sworn he saw her chuckle. She said, her voice ice cold, "Good morning, Mr Vincent. How's the Mrs and Hugo?"


AN: I don't own OFF nor it's characters. I only own Lilith and any other OCs I come up with during this story. The purpose of this tale is to explain and resolve, but it is entirely of my own headcanon, and thus, should be seen as a story instead of truth.

**Before, After, and Reset**

**Chapter 1**

It was a bright and sunny morning in the small town of Elsen. The quaint little town rested on the side of a mountain, the edge of the cliffs that bordered the place jutting almost straight down. Despite the treacherous terrain not even 12 miles to the north, the home of only 500 residents was quiet and peaceful.

In the only neighborhood of the tiny place was a small house, which contained the protagonist of this story.

A soft yawn came from the only bedroom in the house, a young feminine figure being the only visible source. She scratched her head haphazardly with one hand, the other rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Her normally straight black hair was messy from her restless tossing and turning, her brown eyes still dazed from her bizarre dreams.

During the past few weeks, she had been having dreams and nightmares of a practically upside down world. Swan-shaped boats, men that looked exactly the same no matter where you went, fountains of liquid meat and plastic, and these bizarre looking creatures that guarded this even more bizarre world.

"I need to cut down on hanging around Sugar, her weirdness is rubbing off on me." She muttered, practically crawling out of bed.

The half-asleep girl shuffled through her morning routine; brushing the knots from her hair, brushing her teeth, getting her clothes set up for work. Her autopilot had suddenly shut off the moment she saw the calender, "Dang... How could I forget that it's Sunday? That's got to be the third time this month..."

She slumped down onto her couch lazily, stretching her muscles to try and shake off the last of her sleepiness. After mulling around in her living room, she decided to get her usual weekend routine going. This meant cold cereal, cartoons, and all around slacking off.

About an hour of cartoons, a loud ring interrupted her morning. She reached over to the coffee table, and answered the phone with a tired, "Hello?"

"Hiya Lily!" a loud and cheerful voice rang, "Wanna go to my house today? I got some new dancing shoes, and I'm itching to try them out!"

"Ugh, Sugar, why can't you ask Zacharie to dance with you? And don't call me Lily..." The lazy girl droned.

"He's too busy taking care of his shop and his cats. Can you _please_ visit, _pleeeaasee_?" Sugar whined, and Lilith sighed,

"Fine, I'll be over around 11-ish. You want me to bring my geisha attire or just something I can move around in?"

"Either or~, it's dancing one way or another." Sugar cheered, hanging up abruptly.

Lilith got up from her seat, walking to her bedroom, "I am not going to be spending the three hours before going to Sugar's getting into that heavy as hell kimono."

As one may have noticed from here, Lilith is Japanese-French. She moved into the town to leave her overbearing parents when she was nineteen, since they apparently expected their naturally lazy daughter to become a geisha or doctor as soon as she left highschool. Not her fault she inherited her parent's laziness.

She put on some decent exercise clothes, namely a black tank-top, and dark blue yoga pants. Remembering how Sugar's yo-yos got caught in her hair the last time they danced, she put her hair in a waist-long braid. Putting on her sneakers, she left her house to begin the three mile trek to her best friend's house.

Lilith was greeted with the usual; Sugar's dad cleaning up his bakery, Mrs Vincent walking her little boy down the street, and even Mr Durand walking from the outskirts of town to get groceries. Nothing out of the ordinary so far. Soon enough, Lilith arrived at the doorstep of a house that was almost identical to her own, but it was painted a bright and painful shade of pink.

Lilith knocked on the door indolently, but loudly, waiting for her friend to burst through.

As expected, Lilith heard loud footsteps running towards the door, before her friend busted through like a woman going to the mall on Black Friday. The bubbly girl had short cropped blond hair, bright blue eyes, and a grin that was almost as cartoonish as one of Zach's cats.

"Uh, Sugar, what are you wearing?" Lilith said, breaking the awkward silence.

"Oh, this? This is my new dancing gear! You like it?" Sugar said twirling around like a ballet dancer.

For reasons Lilith could not determine, Sugar had decided to dress up in a bikini top made to look like two "X"s, dark blue cargo pants, and an open front short-sleeve cropped jacket. The pants were tied up with what looked like bandages, and the hem had been tucked into black and white striped boots. On her arms were a pair of detached black and white sleeves, armwarmers perhaps?

"'Like' isn't the first word that comes to mind... Did Zacharie put you up to this? Your pop's gonna be pissed if he finds out," Lilith said, her small nose wrinkling a bit in disgust.

"Nope! My daddy gave me some birthday money early, and I got myself a new dancing outfit." Sugar said, almost as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Oh, good. Now I don't have to strangle that toad-boy." Lilith shrugged.

Two hours of pointless dancing to the strangest music Lilith's ever heard later...

"Ugh," Lilith muttered, lying on her couch lazily. Holy crap was Sugar a dancing powerhouse. The girl didn't even break a sweat, even after doing the entire bellydancing video routine for fifteen minutes straight. Thank God the baker had enough sense and pity to drive Lilith home.

She rolled onto her back, staring up at the ceiling fan that seemed as lazy as it's owner. It's slow spinning, combined with the overwhelming silence of the household, began getting to Lilith. She closed her heavy eyelids, and began to drift into sleep.

Rivers of plastic, meek men in office attire, duck-boats; only a few of the bizarre things that swam around in the girl's head, as she fell down the rabbit hole she called Dreamland.


End file.
